Using the T-Matrix Method to Quantify Solar Radiation Forces on Interplanetary Dust Grains
Abstract
Interplanetary dust is important to both understanding ongoing near-Earth phenomena, as approximately 50~100 tons of interplanetary dust grains from different hypothesized sources fall into the Earth's atmosphere per day, as well as studying conditions of the early solar system. This dust population consists primarily of remnants from asteroid collisions and particles released during sublimation of a comet's outer ice layers as the body passes close to the Sun. The orbits of interplanetary dust particles vary widely due to differences in origin point, size and shape, orbit of the origin body, and so on. We study how solar forces like Poynting-Robertson Drag and non-radial radiation pressure force upon dust particles interacting with sunlight at ~1 AU vary between grains of different chemical compositions and spatial arrangements. We implement Waterman's T-Matrix for randomly-oriented independent scatterers to model each particle's interaction with sunlight, due to the advantages of the T-matrix method over Mie theory in modeling aggregate grains of mixed chemical composition. Understanding how solar radiation affects the motion of a particle with given shape and composition offers the capability to model its orbital path, resulting in dust population models pertinent to future experimental measurements as well as further theoretical study. We present preliminary results for scattering properties of aggregates grains using the T-matrix method.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #233
- Pub Date:
- January 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AAS...23330207M